F1 News
How much did Alonso enjoy his fight with Perez? Here's the answer!
- Ludo van Denderen
It was an epic battle at the Brazilian Grand Prix: the old fox Fernando Alonso, who positioned his Aston Martin in front of Sergio Perez's faster Red Bull for laps. No matter what the Mexican tried, he failed to pass Alonso. In the closing stages of the race, the Spaniard's resistance seemed to be broken after all, but he still fought his way back to the podium. By rights, this was one of the best races Alonso drove in his long career.
Whether it was also the race Alonso had enjoyed the most, being the pure racer that he actually is? During the press conference, the Aston Martin driver was asked how much he had enjoyed the race day at Interlagos. His answer was short: "Normal."
Can Aston Martin hold the form for Las Vegas?
Alonso was especially happy that a down period - for a while? - had come to a halt. Indeed, Alonso had the last podium before Brazil at the end of the summer at Zandvoort. Since then, there have been several Grands Prix in which the green cars seemed mostly field filler, so much so that they lacked the necessary speed.
Alonso hopes and expects to maintain the form shown in Sao Paulo during the final races of the season - in Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi. "I think so. At least closer to these than Mexico, that's for sure. I think there are a couple of things that have been understood inside the team and the direction to go and we had some hopes for this race and they proved to be right."
"And now, why not to be competitive in the last two. I don't know if [it would be] the level of the podium. Today, we had a good race. We had Charles, obviously, going off on the formation lap with the problem. We had the Mercedes underperforming, Checo starting at the back, so there were a couple of factors that helped us to be on the podium. But, you know, hopefully, in the mix, that will be a happy place for us," Alonso told us.